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THE MOON 

By J. C. SQUIRE 




NEW siSw YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPAISY 






FtB -5 1920 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



©C1A582620 



4^ 

THE MOON 4^C:^ ^ 

I waited for a miracle to-night. 

Dim was the earth beneath a star-swept sky. 
Her houghs spread vague in that phantasmal light, 

Her current rippled past invisibly. 
No stir was in the dark and windless meadows. 
Only the water whispering in the shadows 

That darkened nature lived did still proclaim. 
An hour I stood in that defeat of sight, 

Waiting, and then a sudden silver flame 

Burned in the eastern heaven, and she came. 

II 

The Moon, the Summer Moon, surveys the vale: 
The boughs against the dawning sky grow black. 

The shades that hid those whispering waters fail. 
And now there falls a gleaming lengthening track 

That hes across the wide and tranquil river 

Burnished and flat, not shaken by a quiver. 
She rises still: the liquid light she spills 

Makes everywhere quick sparkles, patches pale. 
And, as she goes, I know her glory fills 
The air of all our English lakes and hills. 

Ill 

High over all this England doth she ride. 
She silvers all the roofs of folded towns, 

Her brilliance tips the edge of every tide. 

Her shadows make soft caverns in the downs; 

Even now beyond my tree serenely sailing. 

She clothes far forests with a gauzy veiling. 
And even as here, where now I stare and dream. 

Standing my own transfigured banks beside. 
On many a quiet wandering English stream 
There lies the unshifting image of her beam. 

[3] 



IV 

Yes, calm she mounts, and watching her, I know 
By many a river other eyes than mine 

Turn up to her; and, as of old, they show 
Their inward hearts all naked to her shine: 

Maids, solitaries, sick and happy lovers, 

To whom her dear returning orb discovers 
For each the gift he waits for: soft release, 

The unseaUng of imagination's flow. 

Her own sweet pain, or other pain's surcease. 
The friendly benediction of her peace. 



I gaze as they: as kind she is, as fair. 

As when long since a boy's young heart drank deep 
From that sweet solace when, through summer air 

Her lucid fingers hushed the world to sleep. 
O as I stand this latest moon beholding. 
Her forms unresting memory is moulding: 

Beneath my enchanted eyelids there arise 
Visions again of many moons that were. 

Fair, fleeting moons gathered from faded skies. 

Greeted and lost by these corporal eyes. 

VI 

Unnumbered are those moons of memory 

Stored in the backward chambers of my brain: 

The moons that make bright pathways on the sea, 
The golden harvest moon above the grain; 

The moon that all a sleeping village blanches. 

The woodland moon that roves beyond the branches, 
Filtering through the meshes of the green 

To breast of bird and mossy trunk of tree; 

Moons dimly guessed-at through a cloudy screen. 
The bronze diffusion shed by moons unseen. 

[4] 



VII 

Moons that a thin prismatic halo rings, 

Looking a hurrying fleecy heaven through: 

The fairy moons of luminous evenings. 
Phantoms of palest pink in palest blue; 

Large orange moons on earth's grey verge suspended. 

When trees still slumber from the heat that's ended, 
Erect and heavy, and all waters lie 

Oily, and there is not a bird that sings. 

All these I know, I have seen them born and die, 
And many another moon in many a sky. 

VIII 

There was a moon that shone upon the ground 

Where on a grassy forest height I stood. 
Bright was that open place, and all around 

The dense discovered treetops of the wood 
Line after line, in misty radiance glistened. 
Failing away. I watchd the scene and listened; 

Then, awed and hushed, I turned and saw alone 
Protruding from the middle of the mound. 

Fringed with close grass, a moonlight-mottled stone, 

Rough-carven, of antiquity unknown. 

IX 

A night there was: a crowd: a narrow street: 

Torches that reddened faces drunk with dreams: 
An orator exultant in defeat: 

Banners: fierce songs: rough cheering: women's screams; 
My heart was one with those rebellious people, 
Until along a chapel's pointing steeple 

My eyes unwitting wandered, and I found 
A moon, and clouds a swift and ragged sheet; 

And in my spirit's ears all human sound 

Died, and eternal silence lived around. 

[5] 



And once, on a far evening, warm and still, 

I leant upon a cool stone parapet. 
The quays and houses underneath the hill 

Twinkled with lights; I heard the sea's faint fret; 
And then above the eastern cape's long billow 
Silent there welled a trembling line of yellow, 

A shred that quickened, then a half that grew 
To a full moon, that moved with even will. 

The night was long before her, well she knew. 

And, as she slowly rose into the blue. 

XI 

She slowly paled, and glittering far away, 

Flung on the silken waters like a spear. 
Her crisped silver shaft of moonlight lay; 

The lighthouse lamp upon the little pier 
Burned wanly by that radiance clear and certain. 
Waiting I knew not what unfolded curtain, 

I watched the unmoving world beneath my feet 
Till, without warning, miles across the bay. 

Into that silver, out of shadows beat 

Dead black, the whole mysterious fishing-fleet. 

XII 

These moons I have seen, but these and every one 
Came each so new it seemed to be the first. 

New as the buds that open to the sun. 

New as the songs that to the morning burst. 

The roses die, each day fresh flowers are springing. 

Last year it was another blackbird singing, 

But thou, most marvellous blossom, whose lone flower 

Beyond mankind's conjecture hath begun, 
Retain'st for ever an unwithering power 
That stales the loveliest stranger of an hour. 

[6] 



XIII 

But O, had all my infant nights been dark. 

Or almost dark, lit by the stars alone, 
Had never a teller of stories bid me hark 

The promised splendours of that moon unknown: 
How marvellous then had been the revelation 
When first her gradual gold illumination 

Broke on a night upon the conscious child: 
My heart had stopped with beauty, seeing her arc. 

Climbing the heavens, so far and undefiled. 

So large with light, so even and so mild. 

XIV 

Most wondrous Light, who bring'st this lovelier earth, 
This world of shadows cool with silver fires. 

Drawing us higher than our human birth; 

To whom our strange twin-natured kind suspires 

Its saddest thoughts, and tenderest and most fragrant 

Tears, and desires unnameable and vagrant: 
Watcher, who leanest quietly from above. 

Saying all mortal wars are nothing worth; 

Friend of the sorrowful, tranquil as the dove. 
Muse of all poets, lamp of all who love. 

XV 

Alone and sad, alone and kind and sweet. 

But always peaceful and removed and proud, 

Whether with loveliness revealed complete 
Or veiling from our vision in a cloud: 

Our souls' eternal listener, could we wonder 

That men who made of sun and storm and thunder 
The awful forms of strong divinity. 

Heard in each storm the noise of travelling feet, 
Should, gazing at thy face with hearts made free. 
Have felt a pure. Immortal Power in thee? 

[7] 



XVI 

Selene, Cynthia and Artemis, 

The swift proud goddess with the silver bow, 
Diana, she whose downward-bending kiss 

One only knew, though all men yearned to know: 
The shepherd on a hill his flock was keeping. 
The night's pale huntress came and found him sleeping: 

She stooped: he woke, and saw her hair that shone. 
And lay, drawn up to cool and timeless bhss, 

Lapt in her radiant arms, Endymion, 

All the still night, until the night was gone. 

XVII 

By many names they knew thee, but thy shape 

Was woman's always, transient and white: 
A flashing huntress leaving hinds agape, 

A sweet descent of beauty in the night: 
Yet some, more fierce and more distraught their dreaming, 
Brooded, until they fashioned from thy seeming, 

A hthe and luring queen with fatal breath, 
A witch the man who saw might not escape, 

A snare that gleamed in shadowy groves of death, 

The tall tiaraed Syrian Ashtoreth. 

XVIII 

And even to-night in African forests some 
There are, possessed by such a blasphemy; 

Through branching beams thy fevered votaries come 
To appease their brains' distorted mask of thee. 

There in the glades the drums pulsate and languish. 

Men leap and wail to dim the victim's anguish, 
In the sad frenzy of the sacrifice. 

They are slaves to thee, made mad because thou art dumb, 
And dumb thou lookest on them from the skies, 
Above their fires and dances, blood and cries. 

[8] 



XIX 

So these: but otherwise, at such an hour, 

In all the continents, by all the seas. 
Men, naming not the goddess, feel thy power. 

Adoring her with gentler rites than these: 
The thoughts of myriad hearts to thee uplifted 
Rise hke a smoke above thine altars drifted. 

Perpetual incense poured before thy throne 
By those whom thou hast given thy secret dower. 

Those in whose kindred eyes thy Hght is known. 

Whom thou hast signed and sealed for thine own. 

XX 

For thee they watch by Asian peaks remote. 

Where thy snows gleam above the pointing pines; 

Entranced on temple lakes is many a boat 

For thee, where clear thy dropt reflection shines; 

On the great seas where none but thee is tender 

Rising and setting, unto thee surrender 

All lonely hearts in lonely wandering ships; 

And, where their warm far-scattered islands float. 
Through forests many a flower-crowned maiden slips 
To gaze on thee, with parted burning lips. 

XXI 

O thus they do, and thus they did of old. 

Our hearts were never secret in thy sight; 
Ere records first were born thy shrine was old 

That speechless eyes went seeking in the night; 
Beyond the compass of our dim traditions 
Thou knewest of men the pitiful ambitions. 

Their loves and their despair; within thy ken 
All our poor history has been unrolled; 

Thou hast seen all races born and die again. 

The climbing and the crumbling towers of men. 

[9] 



XXII 

Black were the hollows of that Emperor's eyes 

Who paced with backward arms beyond his tents, 

Lone in the night, and felt above him rise 
The ancient conqueror's sloping immense 

Moon-pointing Pyramid's enduring courses, 

Heard not his sentries, nor his stamping horses. 
But thought of Egypt dead upon that air. 

Fighting with his moon-coloured memories 
Of vanished kings who builded, and the bare 
Sands in the moon before those builders were. 

XXIII 

Restless, he knew that moon who watched him muse 
Had seen a restless Caesar brood on fame 

Amid the Pharaohs' broken avenues. 

And, circling round that fixed monition, came 

Woven by moonlight, random, transitory. 

Fragments of all the dim receding story: 
The moonht water dripping from the oars 

Of triremes in the bay of Syracuse; 

The opposing bivouacs upon the shores 
That knew dead Hector's and Achilles' wars. 

XXIV 

He saw fall'n Carthage, Alexander's grave, 

The tomb of Moses in the wilderness. 
The moonlight on the Atlantean wave 

That covered all a multitude's distress: 
Cities and hosts and emperors departed 
Under the steady moon, and sullen-hearted. 

He turned away, and, in a little, died. 
Even as he who hunted from his cave 

And struck his foe, and stripped the shaggy hide 

Under the moon, and was not satisfied. 

[10] 



XXV 

For in the prime, thy influence was felt; 

When eyes first saw, thy beauty was as this; 
Thy quiet look bade hope, fear, passion melt 

Before men dreamed of empire. The abyss 
Of thought yawned through their jungle then, as ever, 
Dark past, dark future, menaced their endeavor, 

Yet, on thy nights, stood some by hill and sea 
Naked; and blind impulsive spirits knelt. 

Not questioning why they knelt, feeling in thee 

Thought's strangest, sweetest, saddest mystery. 

XXVI 

Still moon, bright moon, compassionate moon above. 
Thou shined'st there ere any life began. 

When of his pain or of his powerless love 
Thou heardest not from heart of any man. 

Though long the earth had shaken off the vapour 

Left by the vanished gleams of fire, the shaper. 
Old, old, her stony wrinkled face did grow 

Ere aught but her blind elements did move: 
Dumb, bare and prayerless thou saw'st her go: 
And afterwards again shalt see her so. 

XXVII 

A time there was when Life had never been, 
A time will be, it will have passed away. 

Still wilt thou shine, still tender and serene, 
When Life which in thy sister's yesterday 

Had never flowered, will have drooped and faded. 

Passed with the clouds that once her bosom shaded: 
She will be barren then as not before. 

Bared of her snows and all her garments green; 
No darkling sea by any earthly shore 
Will take thy rays; thy kin will be no more. 

[11] 



XXVIII 

Pale satellite, old mistress of our fires, 

Who hast seen so much and been so much to men, 
Symbol and goal of all our wild desires. 

Not any voice will cry upon thee then; 
Dreamer and dream, they will have all gone over. 
The sick of heart, the singer and the lover. 

An end there will have been to all their lust, 
Their sorrow, and the sighing of their lyres: 

O all this Life that stained Earth's patient crust 

Time's dying breath will have blown away like dust. 

XXIX 

Gone from thine eye that brief confused stir, 
The rumours and the marching and the strife; 

Earth will be still, and all the face of her 
Swept of the last remains of moving hfe. 

The last of all men's monuments that defied them, 

Like those his vaUant gestures that denied them. 
Into the waiting elements will fade. 

And thou wilt see thy fellow traveller, 
A forlorn round of rocky contours made, 
A ghmmering disk of empty light and shade. 

XXX 

Ah depth too deep for thought therein to cast! 

The old, the cold companions, you will go. 
Obeying still some long-forgotten past. 

And all our pitiful history none will know; 
Still shining, moon, still peaceful, wilt thou wander, 
But on that greater ball no heart will ponder 

The thought that rose and nightingale are gone. 
And all sweet things but thou; and only vast 

Ridges of rock remain, and stars and sun. 

O Moon, thou wilt be lovely alone for none. 

[12] 



XXXI 

And so, pale wanderer, so thou leavest me, 

Passing beyond imagination's range. 
Away into the void where waits for thee 

Thy inconceivable destiny of change. 
And after all the memories I have striven 
To paint, this picture that thyself hast given 

Lives, and I watch, to all those others blind, 
Thy form, gUding into eternity. 

Fading, an unconjectured fate to find. 

The last, most wonderful image of the mind. 

XXXII 

Moon, I have finished, I have made thy song, 

I have paid my due and done my worship, moon. 

Yet, though I truly serve and labour long. 
Thou givest not, nor do I ask, one boon: 

That peace which clings around thee where thou goest 

Which many seek from thee and thou bestowest, 
Did never this most faithful heart invest. . . , 

Even now thou shinest clear and calm and strong, 
And I, and I, the heart within my breast. 
Troubled with beauty, moon, and never at rest. 



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